What I’m seeing: Timothy Liljegren is on thin ice with the Maple Leafs
This isn't exactly new.
Timothy Liljegren 's spot in the Toronto Maple Leafs lineup has been threatened before. Many times before in his three-ish seasons with the Leafs. Just last spring, then-Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe removed Liljegren from the lineup for Game 4 against the Boston Bruins and replaced him with TJ Brodie .
Threatened this soon, though? And by these competitors? That didn't feel likely.
If anyone was going to threaten Liljegren's spot in the lineup it was going to be, eventually, Jani Hakanpää , a humongous right-shooting defender with loads of experience who fits the preferences of GM Brad Treliving to a T.
Instead, Liljegren has been leapfrogged on the depth chart by Conor Timmins , a deep cut on the Toronto defence in recent years, and Philippe Myers , who played in only five NHL games last season.
All signs point to Liljegren being a healthy scratch when the Leafs begin the regular season in Montreal on Wednesday night.
Timmins figures to slot in next to Simon Benoit on the team's third pair, and if Jake McCabe isn't healthy enough to go, it will likely be Myers who slides in next to Oliver Ekman-Larsson on the No. 2 pair, not Liljegren.
In other words, the Leafs' No. 8 defenceman at the moment is Liljegren.
Liljegren is pulling in the fourth-most cap dollars — $3 million — on the Toronto defence, drawing more than Timmins ($1.1 million cap hit) and Myers ($775,000) combined.
Injuries, it seems, will allow the Leafs to hold on to everyone on the back end (minus Marshall Rifai, placed on waivers on Sunday) for now.
Hakanpää is expected to start the season on long-term injured reserve as he continues to find his way back from a knee injury. Connor Dewar , who had shoulder surgery in the offseason, will join him there and it wouldn't be surprising if Calle Järnkrok needed some time to recover from the undisclosed injury he suffered near the end of an injury-plagued preseason. (McCabe has also been dealing with something.)
The Leafs may eventually have to make a move, and that move may just include Liljegren.
The Leafs were open to trading him in the summer, when he was still looking for a new contract and eyeing a potentially rich award in arbitration. They ended up (reluctantly) signing him to a two-year deal with a cap hit of $3 million.
It became clear very quickly at training camp that new head coach Craig Berube wasn't enamoured by Liljegren, which wasn't a surprise knowing what Berube (and Treliving) liked and what Liljegren offered.
Berube said he wanted Liljegren to bring more heaviness to the game and make quicker decisions with the puck.
Meanwhile, he liked the puck-moving ability that Timmins brought, not to mention his 6-foot-3, 213-pound frame.
Myers is 6-foot-6 and well over 200 pounds, bringing just the kind of length the Leafs have been looking for ever since Treliving took over as GM. He's also suited up in 158 NHL games and logged almost 19 minutes per game for the Philadelphia Flyers during the 2020-21 season.
The Flyers were outscored in Myers' minutes but hung around even in the expected goals department.
Myers was depth in Tampa Bay the last two seasons. He figures to play a role on the penalty kill on those nights that he plays.
Liljegren, on the other hand, may play no role at all on special teams when he re-enters the mix. Ekman-Larsson has stepped into his duties as the occasional QB of the No. 2 power-play unit. Penalty-killing responsibility was already slipping from his grasp last season.
At his best, Liljegren is better than both Timmins and Myers. The talent is greater. Liljegren quietly averaged almost 20 minutes per game when he played last season (55 games), a career best. He's shown flashes over the years of being a do-it-all defender on the right side.
However, the ties that bound him to the Leafs have gotten weaker.
Liljegren was drafted when Lou Lamoriello was still the Leafs GM. He won a Calder Cup when Kyle Dubas and Sheldon Keefe were still in charge with the Toronto Marlies and then got his chance in the NHL as both emerged into GM and head coach roles with the Leafs.
Keefe was the only NHL head coach Liljegren had ever had until Berube, and even he grew frustrated with Liljegren at times. Liljegren played the fewest minutes of any Leafs defender in Game 7 against the Bruins this past spring.
His first impression of Berube has not been a positive one. It may take injuries and/or poor performance for him to draw an opportunity and even then, his leash figures to be short.
Will that mean the end of Liljegren's run in Toronto? Maybe. There's more competition now and fewer fans in the places that matter than before. The ice has never been thinner for the 25-year-old.
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On the opposite end of things: Nick Robertson.
Assuming he's healthy, Robertson seems like a lock to be in the Leafs' opening-night forward group.
The question now for Robertson: Can he keep this thing going in the regular season when his minutes drop (by a lot) and the competition increases (by a lot)?
Robertson rocked the preseason. Credit to him. But he also played all but one of his games on nights when the Leafs' stars weren't playing, so his minutes were large. In his final preseason game, Robertson logged over 21 minutes, second-most on the team, with huge chunks on both the power play and penalty kill.
He obviously won't see nearly as many minutes during the regular season, though he figures to draw more than the 11 minutes and change he got under Keefe last season. A regular role on the No. 2 power-play unit alone should help with that.
Unlike Liljegren, Robertson made a strong first impression on his new coach, his dogged determination standing out especially. He'll still need to cement Berube's trust — defensively and with the puck — when the games really matter and keep producing in whatever minutes he gets.
His spot in the lineup is by no means secure, either — not yet. Holding on to it will be a season-long challenge.
(Top photo of Timothy Liljegren: Mark Blinch / NHLI via )
